About This Site

By Susan Rudy
19 February 2010

The Fred Wah Digital Archive exists because of the work of many people over many years. Most recently, the Artmob Project provided the software and technical support for the creation of this site. I thank Bill Kennedy, Darren Wershler Henry, and David Meurer for their interest and generosity. This website was designed as a not-for-profit community initiative and is intended as the start of a process. I encourage you to read Artmob's submission guidelines if you have material you would like to contribute or an idea for an exhibition of Fred Wah's work.

In the early stages, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Standard Research Grant enabled the preparation of what was initially an annotated bibliography of the complete work of Fred Wah. For giving me the idea to prepare a similar annotated bibliography on the work of Fred Wah and for its superb organizational structure, I am indebted to Roy Miki's A Record of Writing: An Annotated and Illustrated Bibliography of George Bowering (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1989).

Research assistantships provided by SSHRC funded the following undergraduate and graduate students in the English Department at the University of Calgary: derek beaulieu, Meagan Bowler, Megan Roach, Michael Roberson, and Jason Wiens. For their work in locating, organizing, describing, and/or scanning Wah’s primary texts, and/or for contributing to several drafts of an annotated bibliography, and most of all for their sustained interest and delight in the project, I thank them all. Special thanks to derek beaulieu for his detailed descriptions of many of the texts in the annotated bibliography, which appears in this archive in the “Catalogue Description” section, and to Meagan Bowler, for her work on an earlier attempt at setting up a website through the University of Calgary's MacKimmie Library (thanks too, Meagan, for the great image!). I am grateful as well to Brigitte Clarke in the Department of English for her administrative support on the project in its final stages.

This archive would not exist without the ongoing support of Fred Wah and Pauline Butling, who have generously provided material, conversation, information, and, by their examples, incentive to complete this project. Finally, for her unwavering faith in me and my work, I thank my partner, Frances Bowen.